Two Phil's is retired to stand stud after sustaining ankle injury
Two Phil’s has been retired because of an ankle injury and will stand at stud.
The day after an easy win in Saturday’s Grade 3 Ohio Derby, the Hard Spun colt was found to have an ankle injury, and trainer Larry Rivelli said then that a decision was pending about whether to have him return to racing when he recovers.
"We've done this enough, and giving him six months off and bringing him back, the owners were just like, it was a good career,” Rivelli told Horse Racing Nation on Wednesday. “It was just shorter than we would have wanted, that's all. The horse is going to be OK, that's our main interest.”
The colt's retirement was reported earlier by Daily Racing Form.
Rivelli said Two Phil’s is walking with no apparent pain at the trainer’s Hawthorne base.
“If you looked at him, the swelling's down, you wouldn't even know, except we had X-rays.”
Two Phil’s took Rivelli to his first Kentucky Derby, where the colt gained many fans with a gutsy second-place effort.
“He was just blossoming into a Secretariat, he really was,” Rivelli said, noting that he earned a 105 Beyer Speed Figure twice. “He ran on every surface. Just a sweetheart of a horse.”
And Two Phil’s was easy to train, Rivelli said. “Great mind. Just stand him out there all day, he didn't care about nothing. He's going to make a hell of a stallion, I'm confident in that for sure. He's really, really classy, too good of a horse and just too much talent to not pass it on hopefully to his offspring.”
Before the Kentucky Derby, Two Phil’s won the Jeff Ruby Steaks (G3). He has a career record of 10: 5-2-1 and earnings of $1,583,450. His connections planned to point him toward the Haskell (G1) and Travers (G1).
He is owned by Patricia's Hope, Phillip Sagan and Madaket Stables and was bred by Sagan.
“If the horse is OK, that's all we care about,” Rivelli said.”The horse is going to be fine, he's going to have a good career as a stallion somewhere, and that's all we can ask for. Tough game sometimes. It happens.”